


the moon in your mouth

by JoJolightningfingers



Series: my teethmarks, on you [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Epilogue, M/M, Non-Explicit Sexual Content, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29984859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJolightningfingers/pseuds/JoJolightningfingers
Summary: He was probably right, about you being a crazy son of a bitch.Ichigo figuring out want.The epilogue/pseudo-sequel/other side totake hold of the sun. You probably should read that first or this might not make any sense.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: my teethmarks, on you [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205630
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	the moon in your mouth

**Author's Note:**

> surprise bitch. bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.
> 
> the brain hamster in control of my writing said there wasn't enough ichigo in take hold of the sun. i had to fix that.

You’ve heard places described before as ‘dead quiet’, and it’s never made any sense to you. In your experience, the dead make plenty of noise, muttering to wailing and everything in between. As you lay here in the purest embodiment of that phrase, you figure you understand it now. Las Noches is dead, and Las Noches is quiet. Deader than dead, even; quieter than quiet. A sealed mausoleum under twelve miles of sandstone. Silences like this peel away the excess and lay bare the bones of being, the things that hide in the wash of atmosphere and life.

They’re rare for you, given the company you tend to keep, and you value them for that.

There’s your blood in your ears, tirelessly coursing to the beat of its own drum. Your eyes discern shades of gray in the walls and bathic ceiling that you didn’t even know existed, their presence revealed in the absence of vibrant color. Every twitch of muscle creaks, every breath no matter how muted sounds as though it has force enough to wear jagged mountains smooth.

And still, it’s only when you stall your breath that you can pick out his, magnitudes quieter, like a distant echo. Grimmjow is curled into you commaish, his head tucked under your chin, claiming you even as he sleeps with the bladed teeth of his mask, lain to outline your throat. He could be made of marble, hard and still and heavy as he is against you, but. There’s breath in his sculpture yet, an unconscious way that he strives to fit to you as if he wants to slip beneath your skin that can only be of something living.

He’s snoring, barely. You idly brush the edges of the void his Chain left in him, and he murmurs, dozy and inarticulate.

You sometimes think that your life is far too strange, even by your own skewed metric of what is and isn’t normal. Of all the dangerous weirdness you’ve found yourself entangled in over your tenure as a Soul Reaper, this outdoes the rest by a _wide_ margin. Particularly the part where you take a subdued, persistent pleasure in it all, from the privacy of this sensory purgatory you two share in, to the way your companion’s cold wicks away the heat from every wound he left on you. Here you can comfortably forget factions like Hollow and Soul Reaper, and simply languish in the same space as a soul much like your own.

He was probably right, about you being a crazy son of a bitch.

* * *

There’s a difference between Grimmjow’s cold, akin to the cool of an unused bed, than his home’s cold, which digs like a blade into your scratches and scrapes. Not much of your clothing survived your encounter, but you both salvage what you can and give dressing a go anyway. You’re stinging and tired as you belt the remnants of your (now sleeveless) shihakusho around your waist and call it good enough.

Grimmjow’s watching you when you turn to him, eyes hard and half-lidded but deceptively alert, in nothing but his hakama. His hide is dusty, scuffed, with just enough color that you really have to focus to see what few marks you managed to leave with him. When you catch his eye, his narrow even further.

“This part stays between us.” He states it as a hanging threat, like Sokyoku over its hill, altogether too serious for something you’d taken as obvious. You liked ‘this part’, as much as you enjoyed the fight that came before. Why forfeit it by making it public? It’s nobody else’s business but yours and his. “Got it?”

You roll your eyes and yank your obi tighter. He’s significantly less intimidating than he must think he is, especially with that lovely shiner you gave him. “Or you’ll slaughter me and everyone I care about, yeah, I know. Business as usual.”

“I’m not fucking around, Kurosaki.” His voice grinds like a millstone. Once upon a time, you’d have felt a tinge of apprehension at it. Now all you feel is a little pissed off that he thinks it’s necessary. You think you get what he meant that time about not being able to stand your eyes. “You tell anybody— _anybody_ —and I will leave them on your doorstep gift-wrapped in their own guts.”

Still, that’s on you for being a smartass. You have to take a deep breath to rein in the knee-jerk aggression and the snide desire to needle at him for his reputation—reach out an open hand, you remind yourself, not a clenched fist. “Grimmjow. You trusted me enough to share… whatever you wanna call what we just did.” Remembering it makes the dissonance of his suspicion sting more. “Can’t you trust me to keep it secret without holding my friends’ and family’s lives over my head?”

His flat steel glare persists in silence, long enough that somehow he breaks first. You see, or hope you see, an apology in how he averts his eyes from yours just before he turns physically away. His fingers curl, the moonshadows shift across his muscled back with the tilt of his head toward the sky. “Can I, Soul Reaper?”

For a beat you lose your grasp on language, you were so unprepared to hear something like that out of him. You consider your reply—more carefully, this time—while you search for it. “This part stays between us,” you repeat back to him, firmly so he knows you understand the gravity he sees in this tryst. “I won’t tell anybody.”

He relaxes then, a sight still unfamiliar. It’s not by much, just a fractional give in the slope of his shoulders, but it makes him look a little freer. Part of you eases up in tandem with him, softly content.

* * *

From the moment you open your eyes in the morning, you know the next stretch of your existence is going to be an ordeal. You hurt. You hurt like _fuck_. It’s been so long since you carried a wound back over that you’d forgotten how much sterner the stuff your soul’s made of is, compared to your body. At rest, you feel little better than a slab of tenderized meat, which is a disturbing comparison to draw if you stop to think about who’s responsible for that. The thought of moving fills you briefly with dread.

But the school system is a heartless beast that waits for no man, no matter how dinged up. You rally, a monumental effort, and drag yourself into the bathroom to freshen up. With the click of the light comes the awareness of the mirror out of the corner of your eye—you glance over autonomically, morbidly curious.

Worse than it feels, somehow, yet not as bad as you’d been imagining. There’s a thrum in your chest and belly that could be satisfaction and could be nausea that you carefully, uneasily push aside. You taste metal as you wet your lips and try to recall how stocked the first aid kit is.

If there’s one nice thing about having a reputation for getting into fights, it’s that regular people don’t think anything of it when you walk around covered in bandages. You get to class and hardly anybody bats an eye at you, patched up head to toe underneath your uniform. Chad and Ishida have the discretion to not make a big deal of it either, which you’re grateful for. They’re aware of the combative aspect of your arrangement with Grimmjow, they don’t need you to tell them what they already know. Although Ishida does make a dry-witted crack about your raggedy appearance as you’re sitting down, but you’re almost positive that’s just him taking an easy opportunity to insult you. You’ll find a way to get him back later.

The intensity of the relief and worry in Inoue’s glance puzzles you, until you remember that you never checked in with her when you returned from Hueco Mundo. You’d been so worn out from the adrenaline crash and the trip back across Garganta that it hadn’t crossed your mind that you’d need to do so, since you weren’t intending to solicit her help. You’re such a fucking moron sometimes. You try to convey the depth of your apology in a little wince as you wave—you’ll talk to her when you get a moment free. She seems accepting of that and waves back.

You’re so preoccupied with that that you nearly miss Rukia’s presence, two seats back, regarding you with calm intent that sends a shiver down your spine.

* * *

You expect the pain to be much easier to ignore than it actually is. You function fine as the day goes by—it’s not so bad as to be debilitating, once you get more used to it—but it occupies a set space in your consciousness, a tenderness that forces you to move with greater care so as not to worsen it. By the final bell, you come to realize it’s something of a tightrope act. Given too little or too much heed, you find yourself inhibited, either by the pain or the caution it prompts in you.

You’re unsure what you’re meant to make of the notion that Grimmjow knew your tolerances well enough to beat you precisely into this state. Perhaps nothing at all, perhaps it was only coincidence, but you wonder anyhow. Either way it’s enough of an obstacle that you’re actually tempted to take a short reprieve from Hollow-hunting, when Rukia offers you one unsolicited, three days later. Which in itself is curious—she’d been rather agitated when you returned freshly healed to your house from Inoue’s, to a degree that made you assume you were getting no favors.

( _What deal did you make with Grimmjow?_ she’d asked without preamble, every word shedding January cold. Meaning, _when were you going to tell me that you knew he was alive?_

You’d known she was visiting that night, you reminded her. You’d meant to tell her then, or that morning when you woke up—it was only that Grimmjow beat her to you. That the two of them had crossed paths immediately beforehand was sheer bad luck. At the time you couldn’t help but feel that her _I see_ and the scrutinizing look she’d pinned you with before departing was indicative of her trying to decide if you were lying to her face or not. In light of this new development, you think in retrospect that it was more that she needed some time and space to decide what she would do about it.)

You consider it. But you’ll turn into one big clot if you laze around while the bruises yellow over, and that’s an excuse close enough to the truth for you to feel comfortable using with her.

It hurts. You won’t pretend like it doesn’t hurt to move, that every dodge and slice throbs with bone-deep heat. But it keeps you alert, it keeps you sharp. Truth is it registers less as pain, by the time Rukia offers, and more like a reminder of what’s required to bring you down.

And that is satisfaction enough for the masked part of you. It stirs with your heartbeat’s rhythm where it pools in the punches, watching trespassing Hollows dissolve under your blade, but there’s no threat to it. It doesn’t swipe at you for control, more like it rolls over in the manner of a sunning cat, appetite for battle whetted.

And that’s good. Whatever keeps you in harmony, leveled out. As long as the ghost of Grimmjow’s touch lingers in your flesh, you’re okay. So you’re not surprised by your increasing impatience as you mend, or the fixation of your thoughts to Grimmjow’s absence that grows alongside it. No, it’s the sadness, too gentle to be real mourning, at the idea of losing the Hollow’s marks that gives you pause. You’ve never really _missed_ pain before.

That… you’ll have to address the implications of that. Soon, the next time you see him, probably. Not now.

At least, that’s your intent, but you underestimate Rukia’s perceptiveness and her commitment to keeping you from procrastinating. You wonder when it is you’ll learn to quit doing that. She stops in front of you, cocks her head when you turn her down and for one millisecond you swear you’re talking to her brother, the look in her eyes cuts so finely.

But Byakuya would only ever consider it beneath him to ask, “What’s bothering you?”

You knew this was coming eventually, and still. “Nothing is,” you try, because… because. Because you have no idea where to start on something this convoluted. Not without breaking the silence that’s keeping her safe. Because this problem is bigger than you and you don’t have a straight answer to her question or years in your life to try and articulate why. Because the backside of your skin is aching for fangs and claws.

“Bullshit,” she huffs, the vulgarity so sudden and uncharacteristic that it knocks you clean out of your own head. Like icy wind to the face. You blink at her askance. “Really,” and her tone is somewhat gentler, “I know you too well by now for that routine to work on me. And you should know that too.”

You do.

“So?”

The noise of surrender you make isn’t an answer yet. You fidget while you try to wrest something satisfactory from your mental clutter, staring over Rukia’s shoulder to the afternoon ahead, towards your house. A passing plane cuts a white contrail scar across a cloudless sky so blue it hurts to look at.

“…Grimmjow,” you end up saying, disappointed that that’s the best summation you can muster. But it’s all you can think of—whatever has you tied in knots, he’s at the center of it with the loose ends in his fist.

“What about him?” Not helpful, but she seems to know that and amends, “Is it something to do with why you’re not letting Inoue heal you?”

“I… yeah? Partly?” This interrogation has barely started and you’re already tired.

“It isn’t too much for you to handle? That deal you made with him.”

“No, it’s fine—I’m fine. I mean, moving around kinda sucks right now, but I can deal. I’ve had worse. It’s just… complicated.”

Her nose scrunches up in confusion. “Complicated how?”

“I… dunno. Exactly. It’s sort of… have you ever… not wanted to kill a Hollow before?”

Rukia stares at you, suddenly the sort of still that has impossible weight for something invisible. “Walk with me,” she says at length, in a strange voice soft with understanding. She turns and goes—not toward your house, but something else far off.

“Rukia?” It’s unnerving how she sounds like she did when you first met her. Frigid and formal and so, so much older than you. You hasten to catch up. “Rukia!”

“Stop yelling,” she sighs as you draw level. Who knew exasperation could put you at ease—she doesn’t act like the past has possessed her, like you worried it had. Her eyes are clear. “Just walk with me. I only… need some time to figure out how to answer you.”

Oh. You follow her in silence, out of the greater part of town, up into the hills. This time of year they’re thickly green, with vivacious ambitions of junglehood—pretty, but over-warm. Soon you’re sweating under the uniform and the bandages hiding Grimmjow’s teethmarks. You soldier on without complaint, and wonder as the sun sinks where she’s taking you. That’s an easier puzzle than trying to pick at your own panther-shaped predicament, if only because it soon becomes clear that the answer is ‘nowhere in particular’. She set off to start thinking; she stops when she’s finished, in a spot no more significant to either of you than any other around here. You half-expect she stopped here only because she happened to notice the fallen log she beelines for.

Rukia takes a seat and pats the old worn wood beside her, a clear indication that you are to do the same. Because you’re desperate for answers, you do.

She faces toward the canopy and speaks.

“Have I ever told you about Shiba Kaien?”

The name pings a distant memory, but you can’t place which one exactly until she turns to look at you. You’ve only seen her eyes that sad and tired once before. Disjointed fragments that you failed to understand in light of the bigger picture stitch together as she weaves the tale of his end, of Metastacia. Shiba Ganju’s murdered brother. His hatred of Soul Reapers. Shiba Kukaku’s silent bitterness.

“When we split up in Hueco Mundo. The Espada that nearly killed me, then… was Kaien. Had Kaien… in him. Something like that.” The corner of her mouth wobbles, but she irons it thin and tempers her breath, a slow inhale and exhale. “At the end, when he no longer had the strength to hide behind Kaien’s face, he wailed. Terrified and begging for someone to release him from his pain. And even though I knew that he was not the Shiba Kaien that I cared for, I… pitied them both.”

She glances up at you through a shaft of evening light that touches on her brow, glossing the old hurt in her soul. You think you begin to understand.

“Kaien was beyond my reach before the fight began. Circumstance precluded me from offering any mercy to the Espada wearing his likeness, save that of death. I remembered as he cried his last that… suffering, despair, they don’t discriminate between souls you cherish and souls you despise. Whether his screams were his own or Kaien’s, it didn’t matter.

“I don’t think it’s wrong, to want to help a soul in pain.”

You think of Inoue with her arms encircling her brother’s mask, shedding tears that had nothing to do with the teeth clamped around her ribcage.

“At the heart of it,” she finishes, “that is what Soul Reapers are tasked to do.” A pause, in which she turns her attention to the forest floor, and scuffing the leaf litter around idly with the toe of her shoe. “I don’t know if that helps you any. Speaking personally, I would want to ensure he’s no longer a threat by any means.”

Can’t really blame her for that one.

“But. Help comes in many forms. You’ve made him your responsibility—I’ll trust you to handle him. And I’ll be here, if you need me.”

It isn’t exactly what you were looking for. Still, you feel better about the whole thing. You smile down at her, briefly. “Thanks, Rukia. I won’t tell Renji about… any of that story.”

“You don’t need to be protective. He’s known about Kaien for some time.” Her face softens in gratitude. “But thank you for offering.”

“I meant about the Espada.” You have no way of knowing for sure, but the way she laid it out for you—it feels as though you’re the first person she told. Halting and rough, in the way that an unrehearsed actor is.

Surprise flits across her mouth for a moment to confirm your suspicion, faster than she can keep it from you. You pretend you don’t notice it anyhow. “Oh. I… thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Of course.”

She collects herself with a soft breath, then rises, chuckling as she dusts off her clothes. “Good luck with him. Sublimating a Hollow without the use of a sword is unheard of, but if anybody could do it? I would bet on you.”

You start to your feet, looking at her wide-eyed. Were you having a completely different conversation than you thought you were? “That’s not—Rukia, I told you I don’t _want_ to kill him!”

Her smile takes on a bent that can only be defined as mischievous, in pace with you comprehending the magnitude of the alarm that jumped out of you just then. And then you want to melt into the ground and disappear, just to get away from Rukia’s smug, knowing smirk. God damn her. How does she always corner you like this?

“Then what _do_ you want, Ichigo? I think you’d better decide that quickly. It’ll be better for you both in the long run.”

She darts towards home before you have a comeback ready. You curse at her back as you chase her, then to yourself when she’s out of sight. Yuzu greets you at the door for dinner, your dad does what your dad always does, and you sulkily stuff Rukia’s suggestion down in the recesses of your mind for later.

The wakefulness that grips you that night is the most uncomfortable type there is. Your mind would prefer sleep, but your body is a step removed from that reality, wired for sound, resisting its advance. You lay there staring at the ceiling and try to anchor yourself with just… being, and hope your mind will wander enough to tire your body out. Like oil, your conversation with Rukia floats up out of the silence the house has descended into, and you decide that’s good enough as distractions go.

 _To want to help a soul in pain_. Is that what it is? Thinking of it that way feels… not wrong. Not right, but not wrong. Like a puzzle piece forced into a space it doesn’t belong. Follow the analogy, says your dozy subconscious. If ‘help’ doesn’t fit, what does?

You sift through a dozen verbs, none correct, before being interrupted. _She’s got you thinking way too hard about this,_ drawls the voice in your head. _Typical. Come on, isn’t it obvious? You want him._

That much you know. But _what_ do you want?

_Like I said. You’re thinking too hard._

As overclocked as you are, there’s no fighting such a gentle persuasion. So you don’t. You let it push you down under the surface of your reasoning, looking for your answers elsewhere. You stop thinking so hard.

It’s like dipping your fingers into a river, letting things flow around your untethered awareness. Inevitably, the dull pulse of your wounds becomes the sticking point, something that all the rest builds around. The insides of your eyelids are moonless and dark, and you float back through time, to the rhythm of your breathing.

 _You want him_ , insists the very deepest part of you, and like an echo it bounces back the other way on the inside of your skull. _He wants you_. It’s so clear, isn’t it, once you step back from the details. You could’ve killed each other so many times. At certain points you probably should have, but neither of you did. And really, you don’t know why.

Your hands move in slow motion, almost of their own accord. The bandages you wrapped yourself in so carefully obstruct your sense of touch but even so you know each place he made his mark on you. Your breath stutters at the pain that isn’t, flaring along your nerves at the pressure of your fingertips. A phantom memory of a fist like a hammer, leaving it there, a wild flash of teeth, eyes so close to yours you could see your own reflection in them, even in Hueco Mundo’s scant light. The obscene flirtation of his fangs piercing your shoulder and failing to follow through.

He always demands everything you have. Somehow you always end up giving him exactly that, and it’s always more than you thought, and always somehow cathartic. You think of the pure, heady fire that blazed in his eyes as he wrestled you across the throne room floor. Your hands slip past the confines of your clothes to find the handprints on your hips, where he clung and curled against you, all the sharpness for once smoothed from him. And then you aren’t thinking about much of anything at all.

You come with sparks behind your eyes, grip blanching the bruises on your thigh, your shirt hiked up and wadded damp between your teeth to stifle yourself. Behind your ragged panting your ears ring in the dial tone of afterglow, high and keen, like his fangs and claws and smile. You’re shivering, from neither cold nor pain.

 _It’s not the what or why that matters_ , says the voice in your head—your voice, your Hollow’s voice, that also doesn’t matter. They’re the same one, in the end. You lay with that revelation for long enough to catch your breath, then get up to tidy the mess. Sleep comes quickly after that, more soundly than you’ve had in days. Your last conscious thought is an impatient one. You won’t simply wait around any longer.

* * *

In the morning, you dawdle in front of your closet door, dithering over the wardrobe you’ve gathered over the years. Mentally clock how much daylight you have to stand around here (literally the whole day; you just woke up). Ponder the weather outside. Is it actually as warm as it looks through the window, or has the false spring started? Recalibrate and ponder the weather where you’re going. Does Hueco Mundo have weather? You know it’s cold, at least.

You fidget. Fuss. Finally are satisfied and reach out to grab your badge. Remember as your soul comes free that whatever outfit you wear isn’t going to transfer over anyway. You look down and sure enough, there’s your shihakusho.

Putting a hand over your eyes, you genuinely think about postponing until the next day, when you don’t feel like such a dumbass. Instead, you swap Kon into your body, grab your pack from the floor and your note to Inoue, and leave before the embarrassment can catch you.


End file.
